


love is alive in me

by owilde



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, No Dialogue, Pre-Canon, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, or ideation I suppose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 03:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17317118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owilde/pseuds/owilde
Summary: Rachel wouldn’t leave without her. Chloe knew this – it vibrated through her, pulsated on her skin. Her heart beat, and in its beat, it screamed: She wouldn’t. There was no fucking way.





	love is alive in me

**Author's Note:**

> Unexpected feelings hit me at 2 am. So, here we are.
> 
> Title taken from Lea Michele's "Love Is Alive."

_Rachel probably ran away with some guy_.

It was all such bullshit. A rumor. And a dumb rumor, at that.

Rachel was the sun, burning with the intensity of a dying star, and Chloe couldn’t help but orbit around her like the sad fucker that she was. Rachel was a model, needing eyes on her, but not wanting them – not wanting anyone to see her but Chloe. Rachel was a puzzle, but Chloe knew her, better than anyone ever had or ever would, could or should. It was this knowledge that kept Chloe teetering on the side of sane and not tipping over to being fucking nuts.

She knew Rachel. Inside and out, every inch of her skin and her mind and thoughts, hopes and dreams. She’d seen Rachel break and fall. She’d seen Rachel act and lie and pretend. She’d seen fucking _everything_ there was to see of Rachel goddamn fucking Amber, and so, Chloe was not going to lie down and take this particular beating without a fight.

Rachel wouldn’t leave without her. Chloe knew this – it vibrated through her, pulsated on her skin. Her heart beat, and in its beat, it screamed: She wouldn’t. There was no fucking way.

Chloe typed with fury, hunched over her laptop. Music was blasting from her CD player, probably too loud – the kind of loud that was meant to drown out everything else – but there was no one in the house to ride her ass about it. David and her mom were off on a date, some fancy ass restaurant in the next decent town over, and so Chloe was alone and aching, but in peace.

_Fuck her_ , she thought, and wrote in Rachel’s eye and hair color. _Fuck you_.

Her life was a fucking joke, really.

Max had left. Max had decided that Seattle suit her better – no need to ever text poor fucking Chloe back. It was probably easier to leave her hanging and move on, on to better people. Chloe got it, loud and clear. Max could go fuck herself.

Except. Except, Chloe didn’t even have the spine to really, truly hate her. Because whatever she thought of Max, her treacherous memory didn’t care. It played a loop reel of their childhood – first sleepover, first time Chloe made Max swear, first time Chloe thought about kissing her, as Max grinned all droopy at her with her stupid pirate hat tilted all wrong and the summer sun shining down on them.

Chloe’s heart winced, painfully. She typed up the information about Rachel’s tattoo, remembering running her fingers over it, tender and careful.

She couldn’t even blame her dad’s death on anyone. Or, she could – but it would never be satisfying. She could hate her mom, she could hate the driver, she could hate a billion things and people, and she did – but none of it would never, ever bring him back.

And that was all Chloe wanted, in the end. She wanted for everyone to come back to her. She’d left little pieces of herself all over, and now, she was turning empty.

Chloe leaned back from the computer screen, eyes squinted in irritation. The poster looked like shit, but it would have to do. Everybody else were doing fuck all. Rachel’s parents were convinced Chloe had converted their daughter into some kind of a maniac, and now it was her fault Rachel had run off.

Chloe didn’t know how to explain to them that Rachel had been fucked up way before she met Chloe – that actually, it was Rachel who twisted Chloe around, if anything.

They’d never believe it. It was easier to blame Chloe. She didn’t mind – she understood the blame game. She loved it. It was always somebody else. None of the worst shit was never on _you_ , no, it was the circumstances or other people or some other unfortunate scapegoat. It made sleeping easier, so much as there was any sleep to be had at all.

Chloe couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a good night’s sleep. After Rachel’s disappearance, she’d been wound too tight to catch a wink. Nightmares haunted her – Rachel was here, there, everywhere, taunting her or calling for her or doing Lord knows what the fuck else, but nevertheless, Chloe couldn’t escape her.

As much as it fucked up her sleep, she was grateful to even get this piece of Rachel. Even if it was her own fucking subconscious, at least she got to keep this.

Still, Chloe was going to search every single corner of the world until she found her, and got to hold Rachel, the real Rachel, in her arms again.

Halfway satisfied with the missing poster, Chloe hit print and made her way to David’s lair to get the copies out the printer. If David made a single fucking sound against Chloe wasting his paper, she was going to strangle him with his own belt. She’d had enough. Enough of everything.

The posters kept filing out, spat out from the machine, still warm. Chloe piled them up. Rachel kept smiling at her from the past. It was Chloe’s picture, so it was pretty shit, but Rachel made everything into art.

Her fingers traced the edges of Rachel’s shape. Her hands were shaking – Chloe wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion, or anger, or sorrow, or maybe a morbid and shitty cocktail of all three, plus some special ingredients. The printer whirred and died down, having proved its worth.

With the posters in tow, Chloe walked back to her room and slammed the door shut for good measure. She left the paper pile on her desk, dialed up the music, and crashed on her bed, lying on her back with her limbs sprawled out.

Slowly, the tension seeped out of her body. Chloe took steady breaths in and out, eyes fixed on her ceiling. Her fingers were twitching, wanting to reach for something to hold – a hand, a joint, a cigarette, a knife, anything.

She settled on pulling out a pack and lighting a cigarette, inhaling the chemicals. Maybe, if she tried really, really hard, she could burn her insides and just fucking die. Or maybe she could try something else; bleed, soar, crack, sleep; provoke someone else into doing it. She'd thought about it. She'd thought about it a lot, before and after this, off-handedly and seriously and sometimes just because she couldn't  _not_ think about it.

It was one way to fix the situation. 

But no. Chloe couldn’t die. She was going to find Rachel, and she was going to fix this the right way. She was going to fix everything, because the story couldn’t end this way. Not their story.

There was a sudden tightness in her chest, like someone had decided to squeeze her with all their strength, and Chloe couldn’t breathe right. The longing in her was too sharp, too acute. Rachel’s scent was still on her pillow. Chloe was wearing her shirt. Their pictures were everywhere, and this song was theirs, Rachel had shown it to her – and Rachel’s dumb, artsy poem was taped to the wall, the one Chloe knew practically by heart.

She was never going to leave. Chloe could live a thousand lifetimes and never get rid of Rachel. But it wasn’t like she wanted to. All she wanted, right now, was to get Rachel back.

Even if she’d ran off with someone else, even if she didn’t give a shit anymore, no matter what – Chloe needed to see her again.

And she was going to.

She put her cigarette out, and let out a deep breath. The CD came to and end, and the room descended into a sudden and unwanted silence. Rachel’s memory hovered at the edge of her vision, seemingly always there.

Chloe sat up, grabbed the posters and her staplers, and left the ghosts of her room alone.

She was going to fix this.


End file.
